


why put a new address (on the same old loneliness)

by epilogues



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Fake Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:49:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15208190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: It’s been two years. Two years, three months, and sixteen days since Pete died. Two years, three months, and sixteen days that Joe’s spent mostly a fucking mess. Two years, three months, and sixteen days that Joe is finally realizing that he needs to stop counting. It doesn’t matter, really, how long it’s been. All that matters is that it’s been. Past tense. Final. Pete’s gone, and that’s probably always going to suck, but it’s not changing.





	why put a new address (on the same old loneliness)

**Author's Note:**

> hey, so this is a repost! i posted this fic originally a couple of weeks ago, had to delete and revise a few parts, and it's back now.  
> thanks to jo (lesbianpatrick) for basically creating the entire plot.
> 
> uhhh the tags are pretty vague so if you have any questions about content feel free to drop a comment or ask me on tumblr (@twinkjoe)

It’s been two years. Two years, three months, and sixteen days since Pete died. Two years, three months, and sixteen days that Joe’s spent mostly a fucking mess. Two years, three months, and sixteen days that Joe is finally realizing that he needs to stop counting. It doesn’t matter, really, how long it’s been. All that matters is that it’s  _ been.  _ Past tense. Final. Pete’s gone, and that’s probably always going to suck, but it’s not changing. 

“It’s not changing,” Joe says to himself, like hearing it out loud will make it true to him, and it kind of works. “It’s not changing.”

He sighs, peels himself off of the couch where’s he’s been laying for the better portion of the day, and walks into the kitchen. Joe’s past the point of trading eating for crying for days on end, and he actually does go to work at the studio almost every day, but it still hurts. It still hurts.

_ I need to get out of the house,  _ he thinks. It’s not like he necessarily  _ doesn’t,  _ but it’s just… not as often anymore. Pete was always the loud one, the, “Hey, let’s go check out this new club.” Joe was the one beside him, if not a step behind, the, “I’d love to!” but rarely the one who initiated the plans. As it stands, Joe’s really only been out to have fun about six times in the past two years.

Tonight, though, he decides, he’s going to go out. There’s a new bar with ads that come up in the paper almost weekly, even though it’s in the next city over, and it honestly sounds pretty good.

And so, three hours later, Joe’s driving all the way to the next city over with his friend Patrick in the passenger seat. Thankfully, most everyone’s gotten past the “Quick, Joe’s here, nobody mention Pete or water or death or even life,” state by this point, and hanging out with friends is actually enjoyable again. 

As Joe drives, he and Patrick talk about everything- the shitty bands they’ve been working with in the studio, about the terrible politicians in this country, about the way the new baristas at Starbucks never put in enough cream, and it’s good. It’s one of those times where Joe can almost forget about Pete and everything that happened and just  _ live  _ again. 

Or at least, that’s how it is until Patrick kind of coughs a little, and Joe follows his friend’s gaze to the bridge rising in the distance. Fuck. It’s…that bridge. 

Joe tries to pretend like he hasn’t noticed, like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with driving this way, of course, why would there be, and says, “So, um, have you heard about that Bowie re-release?”

“What do you think?” Patrick snorts. Not even ten seconds later, he’s off on a rant about Bowie and the industry. 

Joe’s heard most of this before; he grants himself the liberty of tuning out for a moment. He takes a deep breath and keeps driving. He can do this. It’s been two years. It’ll be okay.

The river comes into sight next, ugly, choppy waters lapping at the sharp rocks of its banks. The bridge rises above it, steel and a higher railing that definitely wasn’t there last time Joe was here.  _ Too fucking late,  _ he thinks. 

(They never found a body, after. The police searched for a week before giving up. “Probably dashed to pieces on the rocks or swept down to the ocean,” they’d said. “We’re so sorry.”)

Joe tightens his grip on the wheel slightly as his car follows the stream of traffic onto the bridge. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, unable to look to either side. He feels like if he does, he’ll see the sirens and the way the sun was coming up on the water but it should’ve been uglier. Like if he does, he’ll see Pete before, standing on the edge with a million emotions that Joe can only imagine running through his head. Like he’ll see a ghost or a corpse hanging half over the railing, ready to jump. 

Patrick keeps talking, rambling on and Joe can’t really make out any of the words but the sound is enough to keep him from freaking out. Finally the bridge comes to an end and the car is deposited back onto the interstate. 

Patrick pauses in his monologue, glancing at Joe out of the corner of his eye. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Joe says, and it’s almost like it’s less of a lie than he feels it should be. It’s been two years. He’s okay now. A fucking bridge isn’t going to reduce him to tears. 

“If you’re sure,” Patrick says carefully. 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Joe assures him. 

“Okay,” Patrick says. “Hey, wait, did I tell you about that fucking singer I had to work with last week? Dude was an absolute dumbass, let me tell you…”

Patrick and Joe fall back into easy conversation all the way through the doors of the bar. They’ve just gotten their drinks when Patrick pauses and looks at Joe seriously. “It’s good to see you like this, Joe,” he says. “You seem…happy.”

Joe nods. “I-I am. I’m doing good.” 

And he is, he’s glad that he’s past the point where he was two years ago, where he heard Pete’s voice around every empty corner and saw his boyfriend in every vacant room. He’d almost gotten locked up then. Reality was basically fracturing around him, but it was easier to let that happen than to wrap his mind around what had happened. 

Things got better over time, though. The hallucinations, the voices, they’d stopped after about eight months, and Joe’s been doing better than he ever thought he could be, considering. 

Joe opens his mouth, about to say something else, when he’s cut off by a loud, braying laugh from across the bar. 

“Joe?” Patrick asks. “What were you going to say?”

“Uh, nothing,” Joe stammers.  _ Fuck.  _ He knows that fucking laugh, he fucking does, but it’s not fucking possible. It’s not. 

But then it comes again, just as obnoxious as always, and then Pete’s voice practically yells, “No way, dude!”

Joe stands up abruptly, his drink spilling a little as he sets it down on the bar with his shaking hand. “Hold on, sorry, bathroom,” he rushes out before running into the men’s bathroom and locking himself immediately in a stall. 

That was Pete. That was Pete’s laugh and Pete’s voice and that was  _ Pete  _ but it can’t be because he’s dead. Dead. Gone. Has been for two fucking years. 

“Fuck,” Joe whispers, breath coming harsh and quick. He leans back against the stall door and closes his eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He’s over the hallucinations, okay? They’ve been gone for over a year, and Joe’s actually doing  _ well.  _ There’s absolutely no reason for them to return, and yet there’s absolutely no way that that wasn’t Pete’s voice. 

Just then, the bathroom door swings open again and someone slips into a stall a few away from Joe. Joe inhales shakily and figures that he better go back to Patrick before he flips his shit. 

It takes a minute, but Joe eventually gets his hands to stop shaking enough to unlatch the stall door. He’s almost out of the bathroom when the person in the other stall steps out as well, and Joe’s heart stops. 

It’s Pete. His reflection is blurry, slightly distorted in the dirty mirror Joe’s looking through, and he has a completely different haircut, but there’s no denying it. It’s Pete. 

Joe completely freezes. He knows it’s not real, it’s the fucking hallucinations that fucking  _ ended _ , but he still whispers, “Pete?”

All of the color drains from Pete’s face when Joe speaks. He looks up, meets Joe’s eyes in the mirror for not even half a second, and then bolts out of the bathroom. 

Joe doesn’t even register the fact that his hallucinations have never done anything like that before; he’s at the sink almost immediately, retching into the cold porcelain. He was over this, he was better, this isn’t supposed to happen. 

Somewhere in his subconscious, Joe registers sounds from the bar - the loud scrape of a chair, the sound of fist hitting flesh, yelling. 

The bathroom door opens suddenly, and Joe looks up from the sink to find Patrick and Pete. Patrick’s face is red, his eyes are brimming with tears, and he has one hand firmly holding on to Pete, who’s crying and has a bruise forming on one eye. 

“Joe?” Patrick says, and it’s obvious that he’s fucking pissed about something but his tone is gentle. “Hey, are you, are you okay?”

“I-“ Joe opens his mouth but can’t get anything else out. He doesn’t know what’s happening but it can’t be real and the ground under his feet feels shaky, like it might disappear at any second. 

Patrick bites his lip before stepping forward, still dragging Pete with him, and places a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “I think we need to go home, okay? C’mon, I’ll drive.”

Joe lets Patrick lead him out of the bathroom and out of the bar, all the way out to the car. Patrick guides him to the passenger seat before ordering Pete to the back and sitting in the driver’s seat himself. He starts up the car and pulls out of the parking lot, knuckles white against the steering wheel. 

No one speaks, but Patrick keeps angrily wiping at his eyes, Joe’s halfway between being completely numb and crying, and Pete is choking out ugly, hitched sobs. Joe’s mind is fucking  _ reeling _ . Pete can’t be real, he’s not, because he’s dead, but if he’s not real, how did Patrick touch him? How did Patrick even interact with him at all?  _ What if Patrick’s not real either?  _ Joe thinks, and he can feel his breath get louder and quicker in the relative quiet of the car. 

Nothing feels real anymore, there’s no way that any of this can be real, and Joe can’t fucking figure out how to snap out of it. 

They reach the bridge a couple of minutes later, and another layer of tension settles over the car. Patrick shoots Pete a dirty look via the rear view mirror. Pete just turns away and hunches in on himself like he’s trying to disappear. 

It’s not too much longer from there to Joe’s house, although it feels like an eternity has passed by the time Patrick pulls into the driveway. Patrick gets out of the car first, and then Pete slowly follows suit. 

“Joe?” Patrick says softly, stopping and opening Joe’s door for him. “Why don’t you come inside?”

Joe shakes his head. “I can’t, I - this isn’t real. You’re not real.” 

Patrick inhales shakily, and Joe can hear Pete make some sort of whimper from behind him. “I’m real, Joe, okay? The hallucinations stopped months ago. I’m real. Pete - Pete is real, too.” 

“No, no, Pete’s dead,” Joe insists. He keeps his eyes on the dashboard in front of him, praying that somehow Patrick and Pete will disappear and things will be real again. 

“Just go inside,” Patrick mutters to Pete out of the side of his mouth, and then he crouches down a bit so his face is level with Joe’s. “Hey, he’s gone now, it’s okay, you’re okay.” 

Joe just shakes his head again, and he’s trying to talk but his throat feels like it’s closing up. His breath is getting short and choppy again. He can feel his hands shaking where they’re clasped in his lap. 

“Hey, hey, breathe,” Patrick tells him carefully. “Just breathe for me, okay? Just breathe.”

Joe tries to follow his instructions, trying to inhale and exhale slowly but everything is frantic and Patrick’s not real, none of this is, and Joe can’t fucking calm down. 

Patrick reaches out to place a hand on Joe’s shoulder, but Joe jerks away. “Just-“ he manages. “Just- I need to go inside.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. His voice is still calm, but it’s rough with tears around the edges. “Okay, Joe. It’s okay. Can you get out of the car?”

Joe nods, jabbing at the seat belt button a couple of times and missing it the first few tries because of how badly his hands are shaking. He finally unbuckles the seat belt and stumbles out of the car on shaky legs. Patrick guides him inside as best as he can without touching Joe. 

Pete’s standing in the kitchen when they come in, eyes red and puffy, and he looks down at the floor when he sees Joe. 

“C’mon,” Patrick says quickly, angling his body so he’s between Joe and Pete. “You’re almost there, Joe, okay? It’s okay.” 

By the time Joe and Patrick reach Joe’s room, Joe’s been able to talk a few deep breaths and mostly stop hyperventilating. He sits down on the edge of the bed and rests his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. After a moment, he mutters, “Get out. You’re not fucking real. Just - get out of my head.”

“Joe, I’m-“ Patrick begins before cutting himself off. He knows it’s a losing battle right now. “Okay. I’ll leave.”

The door shuts behind him a moment later, and Joe starts crying again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck.” This wasn’t supposed to happen, goddamnit, he was better and he was moving on and his life was actually a _life_ again. 

Joe slowly lifts his head from his hands and is instantly greeted with the sight of his bedroom dresser. It…used to be Pete’s, and all of the clothes that Joe couldn’t stand donating to Goodwill are still inside. 

It’s pretty much the only thing left of Pete in the house, everything else has been torn up in grief or sent back to his family. Joe wonders for not even a second if somehow that’s what’s keeping Pete here, like the bones of a ghost tying them to earth. The thought has barely passed through his mind before he’s on his feet, shoving at the side of the dresser in an attempt to knock it over and destroy it and get fucking rid of every ghost that won’t stop haunting him. 

It’s a heavy dresser, though, so Joe gives up on pushing it over after about a minute and resorts to yanking out the drawers and throwing them across the room. Clothes fly everywhere, and wood splinters as it makes contact with the walls, floor, ceiling. Once the drawers have been taken out, Joe’s able to actually push the dresser over. It falls to the floor with a deafening thud, a wide crack splitting open as soon as it makes contact with the hardwood. 

Joe’s sobbing, his chest is heaving, he has at least three splinters in his hands, but he’s just holding out hope that destroying this last reminder of Pete will get rid of his ghost. 

Just then, however, Pete’s voice travels up the stairs loud and clear. Joe swears and drops down in the middle of the mess. Pete’s still here, Pete’s still here and the hallucinations never lasted this long before and Joe’s starting to worry about never being able to snap out of it. 

He lets himself fall from his knees into his back and just lies down, eyes closed, as the world spins around him. 

The world slows a bit not long after that, and Joe can actually start to pick words out of the murmurs coming from downstairs. 

“Where were you, Pete?” Patrick asks. 

There’s a mumble that Joe can’t make out, then Patrick snaps, “Really? God, fuck you. Do you fucking see what you did to him? What you’re  _ still  _ doing to him? Not to mention your family?”

Pete’s response is actually audible this time. “I- I didn’t think it would be this bad. And - it’s, it’s not even that, I knew it would be bad, I just couldn’t take it anymore, Patrick, and I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut faking your death,” Patrick retorts. “Pete, we had a fucking funeral for you, we all fucking grieved and went through the whole goddamn thing and you’re telling me that you were just in the next city over the whole time? Just making new friends and having a grand old time?”

Joe’s heart twists. Could Pete actually be -

_ No. He’s dead and gone and there’s no way that’s ever going to change. He’s dead.  _

Pete huffs out a short, irritated breath. “It’s not like that, okay, fuck you. Don’t think there’s been a single day since I…left that I haven’t thought of you guys.”

“Then why?” 

“I had to get out. Everything around me felt like it was suffocating me, Patrick, I - I couldn’t breathe. That note I left was from a few months before I actually, you know, disappeared, and um, the - the night I wrote it I was actually going to kill myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to die, I just wanted my old life to, and I was standing on the bridge when I realized that I didn’t have to jump.”

There’s a long silence, and then Patrick says, “So you just left me and your family and Joe.”

“I-“

“No, listen. You left me and your family and Joe instead of trying to fucking talk to us, or maybe telling us that you needed time to take a break, or anything but fucking leaving us alone to think you were dead for two goddamn years.”

“I’m sorry,” Pete whispers; Joe has to strain to hear what he saying. “I’m sorry. I fucked up, and I’m sorry, but what I need right now is to leave.”

“Leave? And go where?” Patrick’s tone is a strange place between livid and defeated. 

Joe shifts slightly, and his hand catches on a soft piece of fabric that fell out of one of the drawers. He tunes out of the conversation for a moment as he picks up the t-shirt and brings it closer to his face. He’s not sure what shirt it is, but it’s dark and smells like Pete and in that moment Joe misses his boyfriend more than he has in months. 

He doesn’t cry. He’s cried enough today. Instead, Joe just sits up and pulls his knees to his chest, still clutching the old shirt, and aches with how much he misses Pete as the sun sets outside of his window and the voices completely fade away downstairs. 

Patrick comes in two hours later. He barely even blinks at the destruction before carefully stepping over to Joe and asking, “Are you okay?”

“No,” Joe admits. “I, fuck, I miss him.”

Patrick looks like he wants to say something else, like  _ He’s right downstairs, you idiot, he’s not gone, _ but Joe knows that he won’t because Pete’s not real and Patrick might not be real and Pete’s gonegonegone. “Me too,” Patrick says eventually. “Do you want to get into bed?”

Joe frowns. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t feel like sleeping right now.”

“Okay, that’s okay,” says Patrick. “Is it alright if I stay here tonight, in the guest room?” 

“Yeah, of course.”

Patrick gives Joe a half smile, but his eyes remain exhausted. He steps back through the doorway, pausing at the last second to say, “Pete’s staying too, if that’s alright.”

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, fingers twisting tighter in the shirt. “Pete’s not _ here _ ,” he grits out. “And if you’re seeing him, you’re not really here either.”

There’s a pause punctuated by the slam of the door closing a bit harder than normal, and Joe’s left alone.

* * *

 

When Joe wakes up the next morning and stumbles downstairs, he finds that Patrick has been replaced by a Post-it note that says:

_ “Joe - Borrowed your car for work, be back by 1pm. _

_ Pete - You better be here when I get back. Don’t fuck this up.” _

Joe takes the note off of the fridge and neatly tears off the half addressed to Pete. Pete’s not fucking here. None of this is real, and Joe’s just hoping that if he keeps insisting that, everything will be normal again.

Joe’s in the middle of getting a bowl of cereal when Pete appears in the doorway. He squeezes his eyes shut and resolutely ignores Pete as he finishes making his cereal and takes it to the table, internally wincing when Pete sits down in front of him.

“Patrick told me to try and talk to you,” Pete mumbles. 

Joe keeps his eyes on the table and doesn’t respond.  _ He’s not real. He’s dead. _

“I, uh. I’m sorry.”

Joe still doesn’t look up.  _ Not real, not real, not real.  _

Pete sighs, a mix of frustrated and about to cry, and tries again. “Um, you really did a number on that dresser last night.”

Joe pushes his cereal around in the bowl, no longer hungry. It’s soggy now anyway. He still doesn’t acknowledge Pete, even though it hurts to ignore him. Joe remembers how, when the hallucinations first started, right after Pete died, Joe had talked to him. It was mostly yelling, but sometimes Joe would just  _ talk  _ to him. And as much as Joe hates it, hates to even admit it, it’s almost good to hear Pete’s voice again. 

_ No,  _ he tells himself.  _ No. It’s not fucking good because Pete’s  _ dead. 

“Goddamnit, Joe,” Pete swears. “Could you just fucking, fucking look at me? I know I don’t deserve anything from you, but I need to know where we stand right now.”

“We don’t stand anywhere, Pete,” Joe finally snaps, voice louder and harsher than he intended, “because you’re not real. You’re dead! You’ve been dead for two years and you’re going to stay fucking dead forever.”

“Joe-” Pete starts, but then he falls silent for a moment. “No. You’re right. I’m not real.” He gets up from the table quickly, wiping at his eyes, and walks out of the kitchen.

Joe drops his head onto the table and closes his eyes. Everything feels shaky, like the walls and floor and ceiling might dissolve at any second, like Joe himself doesn’t really exist. He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until the arm he’s resting his head on is hit with tiny drops.

_ I’m not real.  _ Pete’s words are stuck on loop in Joe’s head, confirmation that Joe’s not totally sure he wanted. He doesn’t know what the fuck to think right now. In all of his past hallucinations, never once has Pete agreed that he’s not real. But then again, if Pete  _ was  _ real somehow, why would he say he wasn’t?

Joe sits up a little and rests his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. No. Pete’s not real, he’s dead, and that’s the end of it.

* * *

 

Patrick gets home from work a few hours later to find Joe still at the table, staring off into the distance and tear tracks drying on his face. “Hey,” Patrick says carefully. “Are you okay?”   


Joe shrugs without moving his gaze from the wall. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s Pete?”

“Dead,” Joe answers immediately. “He’s  _ dead _ , Patrick.”

“Did you two try and talk?” Patrick gently reaches over and takes away the discarded bowl of cereal next to Joe as he speaks, rinsing the contents into the sink.

Joe sighs and sits back in his chair. “It wasn’t Pete, okay, but yeah, I, uh. I saw him. And he told me you said to talk to me.”

“I did,” Patrick says carefully. “So how did that go?”

“It didn’t. He’s not fucking real.  _ You’re  _ not real.”

“Joe, both me and Pete are real.” Patrick sits down next to Joe at the table and gives him a concerned look. “We’re real, I promise.”  
Joe shakes his head. “No, you’re not,” he insists. “Pete admitted it.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Patrick, then he asks, “Pete did what now?”

“He fucking - “ Joe stops, feels himself getting irritated. He wants this to  _ stop.  _ He needs to stop talking to Patrick too, needs to stop engaging with the hallucinations that have probably gotten him in a padded room in the real world. There’s no fucking way he’s here right now, in fact, he probably got locked up when he thought the hallucinations stopped. Got locked up, straitjacket and everything, and everything in the past year has been fake. 

“He what, Joe?” Patrick says.

Joe remains silent.  _ Patrick’s not real,  _ he reminds himself. He can’t be. He talks to Pete.

But then Patrick places a hand on Joe’s arm and it’s Joe’s turn to inhale sharply, because hallucinations can’t touch people. Patrick must be real then, and Joe’s just hallucinating everything about Pete. Yeah. That sounds right. That’s the only thing that this can be.

“Joe. Hey, talk to me.”

Joe looks over at Patrick and whispers, “You’re real.”

“I am,” Patrick confirms. “Now, what did Pete say?"

  
“He said he wasn’t real,” says Joe. “He admitted it.”

There’s a beat, and then Patrick hisses, “That fucking - fuck. Fuck. Okay. Joe, I need you to listen to me here, okay, I’m real and so is Pete. I know that’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s true.”

Joe opens his mouth to protest, but then he realizes that it’s probably pointless and slinks back up to his room in silence. His mind is spinning, because Patrick’s real, there’s no doubt about that, but somehow Patrick is also seeing Pete and Pete isn’t fucking real. Pete’s fucking  _ dead,  _ and Joe’s spent too much of the last two years working to convince himself of that for him to even consider the possibility that that’s not true.

Joe’s room is still a complete mess when he walks in, clothes and pieces of broken dresser scattered everywhere. Even thinking about cleaning it up is too much work right now, so Joe just finds an empty spot on his bed and lies down. There’s the sound of a door slamming and loud footsteps from down the hall, and then Patrick is fucking  _ yelling.  _

The words are mostly unintelligible to Joe, but he catches his own name a couple of times and a  _ lot  _ of “FUCK.” Patrick ends with something about, “YOU’RE A FUCKING DICK, YOU KNOW THAT?” and then Pete starts yelling back.

“I’M SORRY, OKAY?” he shouts. “I’M SORRY, I FUCKED UP, BUT FUCKING FORGIVE ME FOR TRYING TO TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT HERE! IT’S BEST FOR EVERYONE IF HE DOESN’T REALIZE!”

There’s a loud thud, like someone has just kicked the wall, followed by Patrick’s suddenly quiet voice. “Well, say you do leave again, say you take your “easy way out,” okay, but what happens the next time you can’t fucking run away far enough? You can’t just do this shit to people, Pete, you  _ can’t _ .”

After several long beats of silence, Pete starts crying. Joe can hear Patrick immediately moving closer to comfort him, and Joe closes his eyes and tries to drown out the muffled sobs from down the hall.

* * *

 

“You don’t have a jacket,” Patrick says. 

Joe jumps slightly, but he doesn’t tear his gaze from the already-starting-to-wear stone he’s been staring at for hours. “‘M fine.”

“Joe. It’s the middle of January, it’s raining, and you’re outside with no jacket. Here, I brought one for you.”  
“I-” Joe pauses. “Thanks.” He shrugs his arms into the dark jacket Patrick hands him and immediately tugs the sleeves down over his hands. 

“You’ve been out here all afternoon, do you want to head back home any time soon? I was thinking of cooking some soup for dinner.” Patrick’s pretty good at disguising his  _ I don’t know what to say, I don’t want to break you _ tone, but Joe can still hear it.

“Not hungry,” is Joe’s eventual reply. “Patrick, I- This. This is real.”

Patrick sounds cautious when he speaks again. “What’s real?”  
“This,” Joe answers, kneeling down onto the wet grass and tracing his hand over Pete’s name where it’s engraved in the cold marble. “This is real. I can feel it. It’s here. This. Is. Real.”

Patrick kneels down beside him a second later and places a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “This…. This gravestone. It’s real, yes. But Pete’s real too.”

Joe shakes his head, shakes off both Patrick’s hand and his words. “No. Pete’s not real.”

“Joe, I really think you should get home. It’s not healthy to be outside this long in this weather.”

Joe stands, frustrated, and crosses his arms as if to block Patrick out. “I’m not a fucking kid, you can stop treating me like one. I’ll go home when I’m ready. Now will you please leave me the fuck alone?”  
“Fine. Fine, I’ll leave.” Patrick sounds defeated, and then he’s gone as soon as he appeared.

Joe shuts his eyes, just now realizing how cold he is. The jacket Patrick brought isn’t suited for rain, and it’s already soaked through. “Fuck,” he mutters. He kind of wants to chase after Patrick and apologize, wants to get into the warmth of Patrick’s car and go home, but it’s too late now.

So instead he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and walks away from Pete’s grave, mentally whispering every name he passes. Joe wonders if anyone else who’s laid down flowers, a note, a flag, has ever been haunted like this. 

He barely even registers when the sun goes down, only a vague consciousness of getting colder, and by that time, Joe’s looped all the way around the back of the cemetery and returned to the grave where he started. There haven’t been any flowers or anything like that here since what would’ve been Pete’s last birthday, no notes or messages because Joe never saw the point.

Joe knows he should probably go home. He wants to, sort of, but going home means facing Patrick and Pete and that’s too much right now. So Joe sits down again on the cold, wet grass and closes his eyes. The rain seems like it might be starting to let up for a bit, but then it returns in full earnest the minute he really notices the slowdown.

One hundred fifty-six raindrops fall on Joe’s hand from when he starts counting them to when he’s jerked out of his thoughts by a pair of bright headlights washing over him. He squints at the car but turns away when he recognizes it as Patrick’s.  _ Fuck.  _

There are footsteps next, and Joe doesn’t even consider the possibility that they’re  _ not  _ Patrick’s until Pete’s voice says, “Hey.”

Joe stiffens immediately, reaching a hand out and placing it on the marble of the gravestone in an attempt to ground himself.  _ This is real,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Pete is not.  _

“Joe, I- Fuck. This is - this is mine, isn’t it.”

It’s not a question. Joe doesn’t give an answer.

“Shit,” Pete says. He sits down next to Joe and runs his hand over the engraved name, and Joe can’t help but see his own hand moving in the exact same way just an hour earlier. “Shit, Joe. Shit. I didn’t even think about this part.”  
Joe keeps ignoring him. His fingers curl around the edge of the stone, like holding onto a solid reminder of everything that’s happened will make the ghost next to him vanish. Like he’s saying, _This is mine. You are not supposed to see this. Don’t you know that cemeteries are only for the ones that get left behind._

“Will you listen to me here, Joe, please? Fuck. I need you to - I need to know you’re hearing this.”

The rain keeps falling, persistently, like it’s trying to make a point. Joe remains silent.

Pete sighs and moves like he’s reaching for Joe’s hand, and Joe flinches away.

“Okay, okay. Sorry,” Pete murmurs. “Sorry. I- I just want to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t even know why I did any of this or why I thought it was okay, I just. I’m sorry. But I don’t -”

Joe stands up so fast he feels dizzy for a moment, and then he’s biting back every word he wants to yell at Pete about how sorry doesn’t fix it, about how sorry doesn’t make him disappear, and walking away.

He ignores the way Patrick’s staring at him through the windows of his car as he gets into his own and pulls out of the cemetery parking lot. (He’s way too good at driving this road while crying.)

Joe gets home and falls asleep still in his rain-soaked clothes, still unconsciously clenching his fingers in search of a hold on the smooth marble.

* * *

 

Joe wakes up the next morning to a loud thud, followed by Patrick yelling, “ _ Fuck!”  _

It… doesn’t surprise or alarm Joe as much as it probably should, but he still gets out of bed and pokes his head out into the hallway to see what’s going on. 

Patrick is standing in the doorway of the guest room, face red and one hand cradling his fist. “Fuck!” he repeats to himself.

“Patrick?” Joe asks hesitantly. “Is everything okay?”

  
“Pete’s fucking gone,” Patrick snaps, and he sounds angry and hurt and close to tears but Joe can’t help breathing a sigh of relief. Pete’s gone. Patrick’s finally figured it out, Pete wasn’t real, he’s dead and gone and Joe hates how relieved he is to think that. Pete’s gone.

“I woke up this morning and he wasn’t in the room,” Patrick continues, “and he, he left a fucking note that just says ‘sorry,’ and I don’t, he can’t have fucking, it can’t be real this time, Joe, it can’t. I need to, fuck, I need to go find him.” He’s already dashing back into the room and pulling on a jacket as he speaks, and Joe’s frozen in his tracks until Patrick starts to go downstairs.

“Wait!” Joe nearly shouts, rushing forward. “Patrick, wait, what are you doing?” He steps between Patrick and the stairs, a barrier, because no, Patrick can’t be trying to get Pete back, Pete’s gone and that’s how it’s supposed to be and this is what Joe wants, isn’t it, he wants Pete to stay fucking gone because he’s dead, and he can’t handle Pete coming back again.

“Joe, please, not now, I - I’m worried about Pete, I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself or, or already has, and I need to go  _ now, _ Joe, move.”

Joe shakes his head, readjusting his grip on the railing as he steps back slightly from Patrick. “No, you can’t - you can’t bring him back, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, and I can’t, he can’t keep trying to come back, he’s dead and he’s staying dead.”

Patrick takes a deep breath and shoves Joe out of the way without saying another word. Joe stumbles, almost falling backwards down the steps, and by the time he regains his balance, Patrick is rushing out of the front door.

“Fuck,” Joe hisses, and he feels shaky, like he might cry, because he wants Pete back. Fuck, he wants Pete back more than anything. But… Pete can’t come back, because he’s dead, and he’s been gone for two years, and the thing that’s been in his house for the past week isn’t fucking real.  _ Patrick’s not bringing  _ Pete  _ back,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Pete can’t come back. Patrick wants to make me go fucking insane.  _

* * *

 

It’s late afternoon by the time the front door opens again. Joe’s in the kitchen, trying to distract himself from literally everything else by making some pasta.  _ See?  _ he tells himself as he heats up a can of marinara sauce.  _ No Pete, no Patrick. Back to normal. Last week just didn’t happen. It’s fine.  _

Except it’s  _ not  _ fine because that’s when the front door opens and Pete and Patrick, eyes puffy and red, clothes drenched with rain, come stumbling right back into Joe’s life. He drops the spoon he’s using to stir the food onto the floor, and little flecks of sauce fly across the floor like a fake crime scene. “What the fuck?” he says, and at this point, there’s not even a lump rising in his throat. He’s just  _ pissed.  _ Joe wants things to go back to the way they were, because even though Pete’s dead and that’s pretty much the worst thing that’s ever happened to Joe - it  _ happened.  _ It was real, it still fucking is real.

“Just go upstairs,” Patrick tells Pete, ignoring Joe. “We can talk later.” Pete listens, surprisingly, and Joe can hear each deliberate stomp of his feet as he goes up the stairs.

Once the door to the guest room has slammed shut, Patrick walks into the kitchen and stops a few feet away from Joe. “I’m sorry for shoving you this morning, that was kind of a dick move. But Joe, I just. Will you fucking listen to me for once?”  
Joe shakes his head. “Not until you stop bringing this shit back into my life. I can’t fucking - I was moving on, Patrick, I was doing so much better, and then things got shitty again, but he was _gone_ this morning. And I know it fucking sucks that he’s gone, trust me, I know, but I need to be able to actually let him be fucking gone. I can’t keep, fuck, I can’t keep seeing him every time I think I’m fine, you can’t bring him back. I don’t know what’s going on anymore and I don’t know what’s real and I’m fucking terrified, okay, because I don’t know if you’re real or what is or what’s going on, but I know that Pete’s fucking dead.”

  
“But he’s _not._ He’s not dead, and I know that’s hard, and I know it hurts to think that he’d just leave like that, but he’s not dead.” Patrick wasn’t necessarily calm when he first walked into the house, but his tone is definitely rising now. 

“He’s dead!” Joe insists, and he can feel his temper starting to flare as well. He doesn’t get mad, usually, but this is all way too fucking much. 

Patrick steps closer to Joe, almost repeating the scene at the top of the stairs earlier, and Joe steps back. “He’s not dead, Joe, he’s upstairs and I know you know he’s alive, you’re just not letting yourself admit it.”

Joe shakes his head, voice almost a yell as he tells Patrick, “No!” and then, without Joe even really being conscious of it, his hand comes up and slaps Patrick across the face.

“What the fuck?” Patrick hisses, already cradling his cheek. It’s not like he hasn’t been slapped before, but it’s never Joe. It’s always Pete and Pete never really hits that hard and he’s recoiling back from Joe and nearly running upstairs before Joe can even say another word.

“ _ Shit, _ ” Joe mutters. “Shit, shit, shit.” He’s about to run after Patrick when he hears a frantic beeping from behind him and realizes that the pasta is burning and setting off the smoke alarms. “ _ Shit!”  _ He turns the stove off immediately before picking up the small pot and throwing it into the sink, where it lands with a loud crash. 

There’s no response from upstairs to the crash, the cursing, or the persistent shriek of the smoke alarm, and Joe is pretty sure he’s never felt more alone as he closes his eyes and sinks down onto the floor.

* * *

 

Four hours later, the sun’s gone down and Joe’s made a decision. His car is almost out of gas, but he figures there’s just enough to get him where he’s going. (He’s not planning on needing round trip transportation, after all.)

The water is dark, barely illuminated by the moon due to the scattered clouds drifting by above, when Joe pulls up to the river. He parks his car at the overlook just before the entrance to the bridge and then follows the pedestrian path out to the center of the bridge. Only one lone car passes him, headlights flashing over Joe for barely even a second before speeding away.

Joe shivers slightly once the car’s tail lights are out of view. He’s all alone, and he’s going to do this, and he can’t back out now. He can’t. Everything feels like it’s been building up for the past two years and the afternoon was just the final push. Joe’s apparently at the point where he’ll be a dick to his friends and yell at them and slap them and he can’t be that person, he can’t let a fucking  _ hallucination  _ turn him into that person. And if the hallucination won’t fucking leave, then Joe figures he has to.

The railing is higher than it used to be, but Joe still manages to hoist himself up to sit on the top bar with a fair amount of ease. He swears he hears a car in the distance, like it’s coming closer, but he doesn’t really trust his senses too much at the moment. However, he does take it as a reminder that he needs to fucking do this now, before anyone tries to stop him. 

Joe leans forward slightly, hands still holding on, and lets himself look straight down at the water below. It’s a far drop, but it’s still likely he’ll survive it. That’s alright. He’s never been a strong swimmer, and this river is known for its deadly currents. All Joe has to do is let go and let the water take care of the rest.

There’s the sound of a car engine again, louder this time, and then a bright pair of headlights sweeps over Joe. He tenses up immediately. Whether or not the people in the car have seen him, he needs to go  _ now.  _

Joe slowly uncurls his left hand from around the railing. His breath is coming short and choppy now, the realization that  _ this is it this is it this is it  _ tightening his chest. This is it. He’s really going to fucking do this. It’ll all finally be over.

He’s just starting to let go with his other hand, one finger at a time, when he hears an engine cut off behind him and a car door click open. “Joe? Fuck, Joe, hang on, don’t move, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, Joe, don’t move, fuck-”

It’s Pete. It’s Pete’s voice, and Joe is so fucking _ done  _ with that voice because Pete is dead, and before he can think about it too much, he opens his right hand and lets himself fall forward into the water far below. 

Joe’s not really processing much after that, but he feels how cold the water is and the way a dull ache instantly starts to spread through his body. He feels himself sinking, falling, and he doesn’t make an effort to stop it. He’s instinctively holding his breath, but his lungs are starting to hurt and he knows he’s going to let go soon. 

He thinks he hears another splash, muffled by the water surrounding his ears, but he’s currently a little more focused on the way he physically can’t hold his breath anymore. Eyes still squeezed shut, Joe lets himself inhale. Water starts rushing into his mouth, his lungs, and he can’t keep himself from coughing, but that only makes it worse. Everything hurts and he can feel himself starting to panic and try and swim back up, but his arms and legs hurt and they aren’t cooperating and Joe can’t fucking breathe.  _ This is what you wanted,  _ he reminds himself.  _ This is what you wanted.  _

Despite this, he keeps trying to swim up. His eyes are open now, but he can’t see anything in the dark, murky water of the lake, and his vision is getting blurry at the edges anyway, and he’s still coughing but he can feel it getting weaker. But then, suddenly, there’s a weight around his chest and he’s rising up and there’s someone murmuring in his ear - or maybe they’re yelling, he’s not sure - and then he’s breaking through the surface of the water and coughing but there’s  _ air.  _

“It’s okay, it’s okay, just breathe, I’m gonna get you out of here, you’re gonna be okay,” the person says, and Joe can feel himself getting dragged somewhere. He’s still choking up water, and there’s a sharp pain in his right arm, but he thinks he might actually  _ not  _ be dying anymore.

“Almost to the shore,” the person continues, sounding a little out of breath. Their grip around Joe’s waist is so tight it’s probably going to bruise, but Joe doesn’t even have time to contemplate that before the owner of the voice clicks. It’s  _ Pete.  _

It’s Pete, and he’s here, and he’s dragging Joe out of the river and onto the muddy bank, and either this is the afterlife or - or Pete’s  _ real.  _ Hallucinations can’t fucking pull people out of rivers, Joe knows that, and he felt Pete’s arm around him, and even though everything hurts and thinking isn’t going all too well at the moment, Joe can feel Pete hugging him close to his chest before he passes out.

* * *

 

“You’re alive.”

Pete nods. He looks smaller than Joe’s ever seen him, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and curled in on himself in the corner of Patrick’s couch. “Yeah.”

It’s been a week since Joe jumped off the bridge, and it’s the first time Joe’s seen Pete since he passed out in his arms. And Pete’s…. Pete’s _real._ “How?”

“I just - I didn’t actually jump. I just left.”

(Joe’s known this, he’s put the pieces together, but hearing Pete say it hurts so much more.) “You faked your death.”

“I- yeah. I did. And I know it was a shitty thing to do, but I couldn’t take it anymore, Joe, I couldn’t breathe, and I’m sorry. ”

Joe closes his eyes for a second, shifting his broken arm so he’s cradling it in his lap. “I don’t… sorry doesn’t really cut it.”

“I know,” Pete says. He sounds like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. His tone is closed off and numb. “Look, I need to go. I need to get back to my life.”

“Just like that? That’s it?”

Pete huffs slightly. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”

Joe bites his lip to hold back everything he wants to say, settling instead for silence.

There’s a beat before Pete starts untangling himself from the blanket. He’s just folded it and placed it on the back of the couch when he says, “Like I said, I, uh, I need to go.”

“Will you be back?”

Pete pauses for a moment before shaking his head. “I… I don’t think so.”

“Fine,” Joe mutters. “Fine.” It’s not like he finally just admitted that he has everything he’s ever wanted back in his life only to lose it, of course. Nothing like that at all.

Pete just ignores Joe’s comment and stands up. “Patrick?” he calls up the stairs.

Patrick comes downstairs into the living room, surveying both Pete and Joe. Seeing that neither of them have actually cried or punched each other, he seems to count this as a success and visibly relaxes. “What do you need, Pete?”

“I’m leaving,” Pete tells him. “I can’t stay here, I’m sorry, but - I can’t.”

“Are you sure?” Patrick asks with the most composure Joe’s seen him with in quite a few weeks.

“Yeah, I - well, there’s legal stuff, for one,” Pete jokes, cracking a half-smile before his face falls again, “and I’m going to suffocate if I try and come back here. So I’ll, uh, I’ll see you, maybe. Probably not.”

He hugs Patrick, one-armed and brief, and doesn’t even look at Joe again before heading down the hallway and out of Patrick’s front door. The door clicks shut, and a silence falls over the house.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks gently after what feels like an eternity of him and Joe standing there, frozen. “What did you two work out?”

“Nothing,” Joe mumbles. “Just that he’s leaving again.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything, just sits on the arm of the chair Joe’s sitting in and opens his arms, and Joe wraps his arms around Patrick and cries for what feels like pretty much forever.

* * *

 

It’s been two years. Two years, eight months, and twelve days since Pete walked out of Joe’s life. Two years, eight months, and twelve days that Joe’s spent mostly a fucking mess. And that’s when Joe receives a text.

He doesn’t notice it at first, because it’s sent to his old number on his old phone that he really only uses for music that he’s too lazy to move over now. But that night, he’s lying in bed and deciding that it’s a good night to fall asleep to some blaring Metallica, and when he pulls his old phone out of its drawer there’s a notification waiting for him.

It’s just a text, but it’s from a contact that Joe’s long since given up on seeing anything from.

**Pete:** hey

Joe stares down at it for a long time before swiping it away, pulling up his music, turning ‘Master of Puppets’ up way too loud, and falling asleep.

 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! comments are really appreciated!


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